1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing material cartridge, a cartridge set and a printing apparatus in which the printing material cartridge is mountable.
2. Related Art
In recent years, a printing material cartridge is used, in which a storage device containing information (for example, ink remainder amount) regarding the printing material is loaded. Also, a technique that performs a mounting detection of the printing material cartridge is used. For example, in JP-A-2005-119228, a CPU of a printing apparatus communicates with a storage device of an ink cartridge so as to detect whether the ink cartridge is mounted or not.
However, in JP-A-2005-119228, if the mounting detection is performed during a user performing an ink cartridge exchange operation, the mounting and dismounting of the ink cartridge requires that the storage device of the cartridge be in a conductive state. In this case, a hot-plugging of the storage device is performed so that stress is applied to a semiconductor element inside the storage device by the hot-plugging and there is a possibility of inducing a bit error. Meanwhile, if the CPU does not access the storage device of the cartridge during the ink cartridge exchange operation in order to prevent the bit error, a display panel of the printing apparatus does not display which cartridge is not mounted and the user cannot be informed during the exchange operation thereof, thus there is a problem that user convenience is greatly impaired.
Also, a mounting detection technique of the ink cartridge is disclosed in JP-A-3-284953. In JP-A-3-284953, a mounting detection circuit of a printing apparatus detects a voltage that varies according to an ink resistance value inside the ink cartridge and then determines if the ink cartridge is mounted or not. However, in this technique, there is a problem that a mounting detection wiring is required to be individually arranged between each cartridge and a mounting detection circuit of the printing apparatus in order to detect the presence or absence of an individual cartridge in a plurality of ink cartridges.
JP-A-6-262771 discloses a technique in which conductive sections or resistance bodies are provided in a ink cartridge, the conductive sections or the resistance bodies are connected in series or in parallel when four ink cartridges for four colors are mounted in a printer and mounting states of the ink cartridges are detected from a voltage that is obtained in the circuits that are connected in series or in parallel. More specifically, in a first embodiment of JP-A-6-262771, the voltage is input through one signal line into a MPU according to the mounting states of the ink cartridge set in which four ink cartridges are one unit. The MPU determines, according to the voltage value, any one of (i) a usual ink cartridge set is mounted, (ii) an ink cartridge is set that is different from the usual ink cartridge set mounted and (iii) an ink cartridge is unmounted (non-mounted) or mis-mounted, and then performs a process according to the respective case. In the first embodiment, the type of the cartridge set in which four ink cartridges are one unit is detected, however the detection cannot be performed if the resistance value in even one of four cartridges is different. Thus, in a second embodiment of JP-A-6-262771, inventors design that each resistance body is provided with respect to each ink cartridge the voltages are input into the MPU respectively by four signal lines that are provided individually corresponding the resistance bodies, and the mounting state or type of an individual ink cartridge can be detected according to the voltage. As described above, in JP-A-6-262771, a technique where the mounting states or types of the ink cartridge set (in other words, four ink cartridges is one unit) are determined using one signal line that is in common in four ink cartridges and a technique where the mounting states or types of individual ink cartridge using four signal lines corresponding to four ink cartridges respectively is disclosed. However, even in the techniques of JP-A-6-262771, there is a problem in that wiring for the mounting detection is required to be individually arranged between each cartridge and the mounting detection circuit of the printing apparatus in order to detect the presence or absence of the mounting of an individual cartridge. In addition, in JP-A-6-262771, there is a problem that since arrangement positions of the conductive bodies or the resistances are different in the individual cartridges, printer side terminals are also required to be in different positions and the configuration of the apparatus becomes complicated.
In the mounting detections of JP-A-3-284953 and JP-A-6-262771, the voltage is detected and the mounting state is determined according to the mounting state of the ink cartridge. However, errors are present due to manufacturing errors or temperature dependence in the practical resistance value so that for example, in a case where the voltages according to design are approximate values to each other, there is a problem that two types of the mounting states es are necessarily not easy to determine.
Also, above-described problems are not limited to ink cartridges and are the same as that of a printing material cartridge in which another type of printing material (for example, toner) are contained.